If All Goes Well
by M C Pehrson
Summary: Story #9 Spock is gaining strength, but still dealing with addiction when his troubled daughter comes back aboard the Enterprise. What can possibly go wrong? Everything! But Doctor Fielding is there to help.
1. Chapter 1

Spock was not sure how long he had been sitting at his desk, head in hand, absently staring at the letter displayed on his computer screen. Realizing that his mind had drifted again, he straightened in his chair and forcibly pulled himself back into reality. He reread a portion of the last message from his daughter, sent by subspace transmission forty-five days ago.

 _"…I've never known anyone like Sarek. He's like_

 _a piece of furniture—a stiff-backed, wooden chair. But_

 _Grandmother loves him and she makes me feel loved,_

 _too. I know you've told me that Vulcans have feelings._

 _Gram says the same thing, but sometimes it's hard to_

 _believe._

 _"I miss you. I'm lonely. At night I look at the_

 _stars and wonder where you are and if you might be_

 _thinking of me, even a little. I'm glad you're not so sick_

 _anymore, but why couldn't you come here to recover?_

 _You're not commanding the Enterprise now, and I_

 _heard Gram say you could get medical leave. So why_

 _haven't you? Don't you want to be here? Don't you_

 _like having me around?"_

Spock had sent an immediate reply, but had not heard from T'Beth since. Why had she not responded? For a lonely girl, her silence was not logical, unless— _unless she has somehow learned of my addiction_ , came the disconcerting thought. But that was hardly possible. Only a handful of people knew what sort of "medication" he was receiving six times a day. Admiral Kirk, the doctors McCoy, Chapel, and Fielding, as well as Fielding's brother, a priest on Gamma Vertas IV.

If something were wrong with the child, Amanda would have mentioned it in this morning's com-note. He exchanged T'Beth's message for his mother's and scanned down the lines.

 _"T'Beth is doing just fine. She's learning the_

 _Vulcan mind rules, studying the language and social_

 _customs. At the rate she's progressing I'm confident_

 _she'll soon be able to manage a classroom setting if I_

 _continue to tutor her. Next trimester, if all goes well,_

 _I will enroll her in the same primary school you_

 _attended here in ShiKahr. T'Beth seems excited by_

 _the idea…"_

 _Seems_. Spock remembered being quite skilled at hiding his innermost feelings when he was twelve like T'Beth. How often had he seemed content when he was actually miserable? How many evenings had he, like T'Beth, sat alone gazing sadly at the stars? Too many. Too often. And as difficult as life had been for him, it would be even worse for T'Beth with her less-than-Vulcan appearance and emotional ways. Not for the first time, he wondered if leaving her on Vulcan was a mistake. He could arrange for T'Beth to attend a boarding school on Earth, and in his last message had told her so. And there was another matter to consider. He had not informed Sarek that she was the offspring of a Sy-jeera and might soon inherit her mother's power over men. What might happen if those powers stirred to life on Vulcan?

Opening a desk drawer, he brought out the crystal hologram of Adrianna Lemoine and gazed at T'Beth's mother. Her gently curved lips seemed to taunt him, her Sy-amber eyes secretive, amused as if she was reaching out from the grave to create new difficulties for him.

A feeling of utter helplessness began to steal over Spock before he remembered how near they were to Vulcan. Turning purposefully to the intercom, he requested a course change from Admiral Kirk. He no longer gave the deferential procedure much thought. It would serve no purpose to constantly remind himself of everything he had lost on Gamma Vertas IV: authority, independence, dignity. The daily round of injections was reminder enough. The restless, seductive tides of Saurian strardus that thrust him from trembling hunger to numbing satiation and back again. Sometimes it seemed as if "stardust" had become the entire focus of his life.

But no, there was still T'Beth. For her sake he was grateful that Kirk called the course change to the boy helmsman of the training cruise. As Spock readied himself for bed, he envisioned the Enterprise arcing gracefully toward Epsilon Eridani, and a shiver of nervousness broke through his fragile control. If his body so easily betrayed him in the privacy of his own cabin, how would it behave tomorrow when he faced his mother on Vulcan? And if Sarek were also home? Though he had reconciled his deepest differences with his father, he still found reunions with Sarek difficult, even under the best of circumstances. Their meetings were always as stiff and formal as a diplomatic function. It was Sarek's way. The man would never change, and Spock suspected that he, the ambassador's son, would never completely free himself of a rather childish sense of intimidation around Sarek. Some things had very little to do with logic.

Still shivering, Spock lay down for the night and closed his eyes, forcing sleep on himself.

ooooo

"Are you sure you want to go it alone?"

Kirk's words were spoken so quietly that even Spock had to strain to hear them. The Vulcan paused beside the transporter and looked at his friend. There was deep worry in Kirk's hazel eyes, a sudden heightening of the concern Spock had endured almost daily since returning from his deathbed on Gamma Vertas IV. Sometimes he felt suffocated by so much concern.

"I will manage," he dryly replied. He had carefully timed his departure for the most lucid interval between injections, a tight window of 90 minutes. He did not want to be delayed by embarrassing explanations. He did not want to tell Kirk why he must go alone—that he was about to commit a serious breach of Vulcan courtesy, beaming down unannounced in order to avoid the "gathering of the clan" that so often accompanied his visits home.

Feeling the eyes of the transporter crew— _his_ former crew—watching him with curiosity, Spock stepped onto the platform and said, "Energize."

There was a dizzying sparkle of light, a brief twinge of nausea, a dark empty moment before the heat of Vulcan struck. As the transporter settled Spock in the walled garden of his family's estate, it became immediately apparent that he had made a serious error in judgment.

It was dusk in ShiKahr. Decorative lanterns cast pools of colored light over the familiar garden footpaths. From the porch came sounds of conversation, and piano music drifted from the open door of the estate house. It seemed that in trying to slip home quietly, he had unwittingly stumbled on a social gathering.

Spock considered retreating into the shadows, but it was too late. The ringing transporter beam, the telltale flash of light, had announced his presence. On the porch a man swung around and stared at him. Icy disdain showed in the features so much like Spock's, only older. Sparn, of all people.

Stepping forward, Spock forced his hand into the customary gesture of greeting. "Live long and prosper, T'teer."

Sparn's answering salute was casual to the point of insult. "Spock. How… _surprising_. I had no idea that you were expected home tonight."

Spock drew in a deep, steadying breath of Vulcan air. He seldom spoke to Sparn anymore beyond the barest civilities, and at times even that required considerable self-discipline. Sarek's brother had long been a thorn in Spock's heel. He no longer wasted energy trying to analyze his uncle's antagonism. He simply accepted Sparn as an unpleasant fact of family life and did his best to avoid the open confrontations that had resulted in punishment during his formative years.

Spock heard Sarek's voice in the house. The prospect of facing his father was not a pleasant one, but he was committed now. He walked up the steps, past Sparn, and slipped in quietly among the guests. At first no one noticed as he eased his way toward the bedroom hall, looking for T'Beth. Their attention was on the piano where his mother sat playing a Beethoven sonata. Then the music came to an unfortunate end. Somewhere in the room a woman's head turned.

His uncle's wife, T'Prinka, spoke out in a clear voice. "Spock. Surely that is you?"

Caught, Spock stopped in his tracks. A wave of heat rolled up his collar as more faces turned in his direction. Sarek rose from his chair. But before the ambassador could voice any reaction to his son's unmannerly arrival, Amanda left the piano and hurried Spock into the relative privacy of the kitchen.

Once inside, his mother's eyes embraced him. "Oh Spock, what a wonderful surprise! You're looking _so_ much better. Still too thin, though, but give me a month or so and I'll take care of that."

"Mother, it is good to see you," Spock told her, "but I regret that I can stay only a few minutes, just long enough to—"

The kitchen door opened. It closed again behind Sarek, shutting out the voices in the living room. Spock felt his palms begin to sweat. "Father," he said, concealing his nerves beneath a stone-calm exterior.

For a terrible moment he held still, feeling his pupils dilated and exposed to Sarek's penetrating gaze. Surely Sarek would recognize the sign of drug-use, unless he was too busy looking deeper, at the Vulcan abilities ripped away by disease, at the disappointing shell of a son left to him. Under his father's eyes Spock felt like a boy again. He felt like apologizing for what he had become. Instead he said, "I know that my arrival is awkward for you. I shall not stay long."

"You came to see your daughter," Sarek surmised correctly.

"I am…somewhat concerned about her," Spock said. "These past months have not been easy for the child, between the adjustments she has had to make, and…" He hesitated, reluctant to discuss his illness, and was saved from it when the kitchen door opened again.

T'Beth walked in.

Evidently the child had not been told of his arrival. At the sight of him she froze, emotions playing freely over his face. There was shock, then joy that spilled out in tears, but such was her restraint that she did not throw her arms around him.

"Under the circumstances," Sarek said, "we excuse you. Spend as much time as you wish with her."

Under the circumstances? _Perhaps,_ thought Spock, _I am no longer even expected to behave as a Vulcan._

"Spock." Sarek's voice gentled. "It is good to see you well."

Somehow Spock managed a Vulcanly nod of acknowledgement and respect, then collected his daughter and left for the privacy of her bedroom. The moment the door closed, she hugged him tightly, her face buried in his jacket, sobbing out the pent emotions. Uncomfortably aware of how sound carried in the old house, Spock tried to soothe the child by holding her close and stroking her smooth dark hair. It had grown long enough for traditional Vulcan braiding, and that was not the only change. She was taller than he remembered by at least three inches. _All in a few months' time._

Looking up into his eyes, she said, "I thought you'd _never_ come! How long will you be here?"

"I cannot stay," he said with regret.

Frowning, she pulled away. "A week. You can manage _that."_

He shook his head. "An hour, at most."

"No!" came the loud, childish complaint.

Startled, Spock instructed her to lower her voice. "T'Beth, quietly. You must not disturb your grandparents' guests. In your messages you sounded so…discontented…that I was concerned. And when you stopped communicating…"

"You came," she finished for him. "I hoped you would—but for an _hour?"_

What more could he tell her? A prickle of foreboding crept over Spock as he watched her anger build. "T'Beth…if you are not happy here..."

"Why did you even _bother!_ " she exploded. "You could have been here on Vulcan all along! You could stay now, but you don't _want_ to! You don't _want_ to be with me—you never have! You'd rather ship me off to a boarding school!"

Spock knew everyone had heard it. He envisioned every carefully composed face, every courteously averted gaze, and the unspoken embarrassment of his parents. "You are mistaken. I thought you might _prefer_ a boarding school. In any event, I could not have stayed here. I am under medical treatment—I have _told_ you."

Her eyes narrowed. Slowly and clearly she said, "I don't believe it."

She may as well have called him a liar. What sort of child was this? And the fact that he was not being completely honest about his 'treatment' only added to the pain. All the uncertainties of the past came rushing back to him, all the agonies he had suffered because of T'Beth and her Sy-jeera mother.

"You will not speak to me in this manner," he said, voice tight with the ache of reopened wounds.

She had stopped crying completely. Silently she walked to her dresser. Opening a drawer, she picked up a sturpa and held it out to him by its business end. Spock stared at the Vulcan whip in confusion. Where had it come from? Did T'Beth know what it was for? Though Spock had been strongly tempted in the past, he had never used physical punishment on his daughter. If deemed necessary, such a severe measure should only be carried out by her grandfather—by Sarek. Yet T'Beth lived with Sarek, making it equally improper for him to violate the peace of his home. _What did that leave?_

"Go ahead," T'Beth dared him now, "hit me." Eyes full of fury, she stood waiting.

"Put that down," Spock ordered.

Instead, she came at _him_. The sturpa cut through the air with a hissing sound, but at the last instant she thought better of it and changed the trajectory. It narrowly missed Spock's arm. He caught hold of the whip and wrenched it from her. Gripped by a violent impulse, he very nearly struck her—not once, but repeatedly.

He was slipping out of control. He felt his mind fragmenting dangerously. It was the strardus, again.

Letting the sturpa drop, he turned from his daughter and escaped into the hallway. He stopped by Amanda's grandfather clock and forced slow, deep breaths into his lungs. He dared not give in to panic. He still had to get out of the house. Gathering himself, he went into the kitchen, found it empty, and continued through the outer door, to the garden. The sweet, disturbing scent of his mother's cactus followed him out the gate.

He was not ready to beam up. He needed some solitude in which to reorder his thoughts. Veering west, he strode through the quiet streets of ShiKahr, toward the meditation park.

ooooo

"Captain," asked Transporter Chief Rand, "will we be leaving orbit now?"

Spock's ears were still ringing as he stepped down from the platform, but he was sure he had heard her correctly. Though they both knew he no longer commanded the Enterprise, he stopped to consider Rand's question. A part of him longed to shake Vulcan's dust from his boots as soon as possible and distance himself from his hostile, baffling daughter. Yet he could not dismiss her haunting image from his mind, offering him the sturpa, fingers curled tightly around the leather.

"That remains to be seen," he said at last, and headed straight for the Medical Department. Though he normally avoided sickbay between "treatments", at this time of day (late morning aboard ship) it was the most logical place to find Doctor McCoy. And who better to consult about the trouble with T'Beth? Even if McCoy were not a doctor, he was as human as humans came. His gruff exterior hid a warm, vulnerable heart and a deep understanding of the human condition. Having a daughter of his own, McCoy also knew something about parenting. But perhaps what recommended him most was his fondness for T'Beth, an affection that the child wholeheartedly returned.

Spock came across McCoy in the lab. Though the ward beds were empty of patients, he looked harried and worn.

"Am I disturbing you?" Spock asked, half hoping the doctor would send him away.

"Disturbing me?" McCoy grumbled. "It's those damned cadets who are disturbing me! Dammit, Spock, I'm a doctor, not a babysitter. Those wet behind the ears trainees are making a mess of everything."

"Really." To Spock, the sickbay seemed quiet and orderly. "Your daily reports are generally quite favorable."

"That just goes to show you," McCoy retorted. "You _can't_ believe everything you read."

Spock's eyebrow climbed as he mulled over the odd remark. It seemed as if McCoy was either calling himself inefficient, inaccurate, or a blatant liar. He decided that he had misunderstood the doctor's statement.

Suddenly McCoy realized Spock should not even be aboard ship and looked him over with a critical eye. "Hey, I thought you were down on Vulcan. What's going on? Is—"

A sound of light footsteps interrupted the flow of questions. Knowing what he would find, Spock glanced over and caught a flash of golden hair above a white medical smock. It was _not_ Doctor Chapel. _His thoughts fled to a pain-swept world of pink skies and rolling green hills. He felt sunshine on his shoulders, the_ _cool touch of human hands, the bitter taste of sickness…_

Spock found himself lying on a couch in Doctor McCoy's office. The door was shut, the windows opaqued. There was an insect-like humming near his left ear. McCoy turned off the medscanner and studied its readings.

Spock sat up shakily.

"Has this been happening often?" McCoy questioned. "That woman really has quite an effect on you…"

Spock looked at him in annoyance. McCoy knew all about the mental flights of strardus. "Really, doctor, that is not amusing."

McCoy's blue eyes searched him. "No, Spock, I'm serious. I thought you were getting along better with Laurie. So she got you hooked on drugs. So an alien in _you_ worked her over. At this point, I'd say you two are about even."

Spock began to get up, but McCoy grasped his shoulder, holding him on the couch. "Okay, okay, I'll drop it—for now. We can talk about something else, like why you're here instead of visiting that kid of yours. What happened?"

Though Spock welcomed the change of subject, he was no longer sure if he should speak to McCoy about T'Beth, no longer sure of anything where his daughter was concerned. But as McCoy settled into his desk chair and waited expectantly, Spock decided to forge ahead. It took considerable effort for him to say, "T'Beth's behavior…does not seem normal."

McCoy straightened. "Not normal? You mean for a Vulcan."

"No, Doctor. I mean for a twelve year old child." Interlacing his fingers in his lap, he stared at them, remembering T'Beth's distressing anger. "She became furious. She rejected the notion that I could not receive proper medical treatment on Vulcan. She said she did not believe it. When I rebuked her, she took a sturpa from her drawer and offered it to me. She _urged_ me to use it."

"Wait," McCoy interrupted. "A stir-paw—what's that?"

Spock drew a breath. "A sturpa is…a traditional Vulcan whip. It is sometimes used as a…disciplinary tool."

McCoy almost came out of his chair. "You _whipped_ her? But I suppose," he added acidly, "that it was the _logical_ thing to do…"

The doctor's reaction stung. Theirs had not always been the easiest of friendships, and perhaps for that reason Spock valued it all the more. "Doctor, I did not strike her, but she nearly struck me. She _did_ , once before, on Ildarani. And worse."

McCoy's eyes widened. "She took a swing? And what did _you_ do?"

"I felt my control slipping and left," Spock admitted before pressing his point once more. "It cannot be normal for a child to attack her father."

"Depends on the father," McCoy mused. "What in blazes did you say to her?"

"I merely reproached her for being disrespectful."

McCoy sighed. "And what did you say that _triggered_ the disrespectful attitude?"

Spock briefly thought. "That I could only stay an hour."

McCoy raised his hands. "Well glory be, she doesn't need a psychologist, she needs a father who can spend time with her." _And make her feel loved,_ he might have added, but that was not so easy for an emotionally restrained Vulcan.

Spock rose to his feet, anger stirring beneath a thin layer of control. "I am tired of this, Doctor. You _know_ why I could not remain there." He started for the door.

"No. Wait."

Reluctantly Spock turned.

The doctor pushed back his seat and stood. "I'm curious. You say she's done worse."

"It happened only once. I would describe it as…a mind to mind emotional assault."

" _Emotion,_ not thoughts." McCoy's eyes narrowed. "Sounds like her Sy blood's showing…"

"Unfortunately," agreed Spock.

"But that's part of who she is. You might not be happy about it, but she'll have to live with those Sy traits…and so will you." The doctor grew thoughtful. "With your permission, I'd like to spend some time with her. Maybe Jim would let us bring her aboard—just for a week or so."

Spock did not like the idea, but he could not very well decline after soliciting McCoy's help. "One thing is clear. At present, I am not fit to deal with her."

"I know, Spock. _I'll_ take charge."

"Then do as you please."

ooooo

McCoy was not sure what he had expected to find when he came face to face with T'Beth. A pale, withdrawn wreck of a child? The bright-eyed girl who bounded from the transporter platform took him pleasantly by surprise.

T'Beth dove into his arms and hugged him breathless. "I get to ride along for a whole week! This was your idea, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was," he admitted, squeezing her with unabashed delight.

She never looked better. In fact, she glowed. Basking in the warmth of her affection, McCoy could almost attribute Spock's worries to Vulcan nit-picking. Almost. The trouble was, he knew the girl. He had seen some of her better performances, and this might just be one of them.

Before long she was exploring his cabin with the unrestrained air of a coddled child come home—poking around, handling everything, all but peeking into drawers. McCoy noted the set of her jaw as she eyed the hologram of his daughter Joanna. T'Beth picked up a new holo—one that she had never seen before.

She frowned at the officer's subtly feline appearance. "Who's she?"

"A friend named Nahfia," McCoy answered with a stab of grief for his lost love.

T'Beth's frown deepened. "Is she aboard ship?"

"Not anymore."

She set down the holo and smiled.

ooooo

The Enterprise carried modern psyche equipment that even adults found unnerving. There was no doubt that it would terrify a child. Even if Spock had signed a consent form, which he hadn't, McCoy would never have subjected T'Beth to his "mechanical brain pickers". This was to be a mental probing so gentle that she would never suspect what was happening.

That first evening she told him, "I want to spend all my time with you."

"What about your father?" McCoy casually asked.

" _Him?"_ Pain flared in her eyes, and for an instant she reminded McCoy of the grim, troubled Spock in his office that morning. She looked so much like the captain.

Though T'Beth slept in Uhura's cabin, over the next forty-eight hours the doctor took her almost everywhere else with him—to meals, to recreation, even to work where he introduced her to startled trainees as "my new colleague" and exchanged conspiratory winks with the child. Most of all, they just talked.

On their third morning McCoy brought up the subject of Spock again. They had breakfasted early, just the two of them, and were sharing a private swim before day watch.

"Maybe," he suggested, "you should save a _little_ time for your father. And I notice you're avoiding Admiral Kirk, too."

" _Them!"_ T'Beth glowered as she vigorously treaded water. "The last time I saw the _captain_ , he beat me."

"Really?" McCoy tried to look sympathetic. A quick sweep of his medscanner the day she came aboard hadn't turned up anything more serious than a thorn scratch.

"He _did_ ," she insisted, her voice thick and convincing. "I bet that's the only reason he came—to knock me around, to make himself feel big and tough. And it wasn't the first time, either." T'Beth boldly looked him in the eye. "Admiral Kirk gave me a whipping, too. Did you know that? If you don't believe me, just ask him."

McCoy rolled onto his back and stared for all his worth at the blue sky and whipped cream clouds he had programmed for the overhead. _Jim whipping her! What next?_

"They hate me!" she burst out. "Both of them!"

Reserving comment, McCoy climbed from the water and began toweling himself dry. T'Beth swam to the edge of the pool. Chin resting on her arms, she looked up at him through reddened eyes. Not all the droplets on her face were pool water. She was crying.

"It's true," she choked. "Father _always_ has time for Jim Kirk. They _always_ have time for each other, but never for me."

McCoy reached down and helped her out of the pool. Holding her thin, slippery shoulders he said, "Sweetheart, listen to me. Jim and your father have been friends for a long time, but that doesn't detract one little bit from their feelings for you."

"I don't believe it," she seethed. "I hate them. I hate them both. I wish they were dead!"

Before McCoy could react, she grabbed her towel and ran dripping wet from the pool area.

ooooo

T'Beth had a knack for holing up in unlikely places. Word reached McCoy of her whereabouts and sure enough, he found her curled up, napping by the antique ship's wheel on the forward observation deck. At his gentle nudge she stretched and opened her eyes.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

Though months of Vulcan sun had tanned her, she still seemed wan to McCoy. Maybe it was those solemn, golden-brown eyes that dominated her young face as she got to her feet.

"I don't feel anything," she declared. "That's the Vulcan way."

"Vulcan like Spock."

She nodded. "A thinking machine." Gazing out at the stars, she said, "We were on the main observation deck when he told me he was filing for custody. I was _so_ happy. But it doesn't pay to be happy or trust anyone—you only end up getting hurt."

Gently McCoy pushed a dark lock of her hair into place. "Sure, sometimes we get hurt, but we _have_ to open our hearts to the people we love. And your father is _not_ a machine. He may not always show it, but he feels plenty, particularly where you are concerned."

T'Beth looked at him, her jaw set. "Oh, no he doesn't."

"Why do you say that?"

Sighing, she ran her fingers over the smooth, aged wood of the wheel. "Because…" her voice caught. "'Cause he _left_ me, don't you see? He's _always_ left me—even back when I was only a baby. I used to think he couldn't help it, that there was some reason I didn't know about, but no one would do that to someone he loved—abandon his own baby to go chase off through Space."

McCoy thought ruefully of Joanna. There were many reasons why a man would leave his daughter, and most of them involved deep and torturous feelings. But how could a hurt, lonely child be expected to understand that? Especially if her father was a tight-lipped, undemonstrative halfling named Spock.

He gathered T'Beth in his arms and she nestled against him like a big, love-starved kitten.

ooooo

After a restless night, McCoy awoke to the music of his alarm and groaned when he saw the time: 0430 hours. After dressing quickly, he gulped some coffee, grabbed his medkit, and headed a short distance down the corridor to the captain's quarters. Since T'Beth came aboard, Spock had stayed clear of sickbay and had all his injections delivered, aside from the dose at 0100 hours. That one had always been left to the Vulcan, and McCoy sometimes wondered if Spock waited the appropriate interval.

McCoy arrived four minutes early and found the captain still in his pajamas, peaked and taut with drug-hunger. The time passed slowly—Spock seated on his bed, shivering, trying not to look at the hypo with its blue ampule of relief. Compassion for the man made McCoy question what he was about to do. But then he remembered the reason for it; the mixed-up, miserable child sleeping on a portable cot in Commander Uhura's cabin.

At 0500 hours precisely, McCoy administered the dose of strardus with a quick jab to an exposed arm. Spock's hand went to the injection site. He sank down on the bed and lay with his eyes closed, breathing erratically. McCoy settled onto the foot of the bed, watching for the worst of the drug rush to subside, waiting until the Vulcan finally came to himself, or what passed for himself these days.

Spock was clearly surprised to find him still there.

"Well," McCoy said, "good morning."

Looking perplexed, the captain rose to a sitting position, his back against the wall.

There was no way for McCoy to sugarcoat it. "Spock, it's about T'Beth. That kid of yours is an emotional wreck. Can't you guess why?"

Spock frowned, obviously struggling to set his mind in order and make sense of the doctor's words. "I prefer not to speculate."

"Hell, how can anyone so smart be so dense? How can anyone with your I.Q. not know enough to let his kid feel wanted? Not know enough to tell her why she ended up with her grandmother instead of you, why she never saw hide nor hair of you for eleven years. Ignoring a problem won't make it go away. If I didn't know better, I'd think this junk was taking away your nerve."

Spock came off the bed and shut himself in the bathroom. There was a sound of water running.

After a while McCoy went to the door and called, " _Hellooo_. I'm still out here, I'm not going away."

Spock's voice came to him. "I do not see where any of this is your business."

"Now just wait a minute," McCoy said. "You made it my business, remember? _You_ came to _me_ about her."

The door opened. Wearing a dark robe, Spock confronted him. "Yes, Doctor, I came to you…and in turn I expected professional behavior, not insults."

"Okay," McCoy conceded with a twinge of guilt, "that was out of line. But listen, will you? What I'm saying in my own clumsy human way is this: _tell her_. Tell her everything before you lose her completely."

"That," Spock said, "is your opinion."

"My _medical_ opinion."

The Vulcan's eyebrow rose in the smug sort of way that always exasperated McCoy. "Thank you for your services, Doctor. You know where to send your bill."

McCoy's temper flared. "Oh, how noble! Go ahead and protect the hallowed memory of her grandmother the shrew. Don't tell T'Beth anything about her mother, either. Just let her tear herself apart believing you didn't give a damn about her all those years." A sudden, ugly thought came to him. "Or maybe you really _didn't_ give a damn."

Spock stiffened, the rigid lines of his face etched with pain.

"Well then…" McCoy studied him, his anger melting away. "At least you care _now._ So tell her the truth. Where's your logic, man? Both those women are dead and gone."

"In T'Beth's memory those women are still very much alive. Would you have me destroy the child's affection for them? Would you have me tell her that she might soon be a Sy-jeera like her mother?"

"She needs to hear the truth."

"No," Spock said firmly.

For a moment they stood toe to toe. Then McCoy said, "Alright then, _I'll_ tell her."

" _You will not!"_ Strardus pulsed a black warning from Spock's eyes.

McCoy's heart skipped a beat. Slowly walking to the door, he fingered the keypad before looking back over his shoulder. Quietly he said, "As chief medical officer of this ship, I consider the welfare of my patients first and foremost. In medical matters my authority exceeds even yours, Captain."

ooooo

It had been a fine bluff. But now, as McCoy sat idly over his biocomp, he admitted to dismal failure. Even with Spock's mind and body saturated with strardus, he hadn't budged. And though McCoy cared not a trader's damn about the captain's authority in this instance, he did care enough about his troubled friend to respect his personal wishes. Even if Spock _was_ making a snarth-sized mistake.

"Hi," came a small, sad voice.

McCoy looked up. As T'Beth came dragging in, his heart went out to the despondent child. She was the one who would suffer most, wavering between love and hate for a father she did not understand.

With a deep sigh, she settled onto an examination table and hooked her shoes into the wall-mounted cycle blocks. She started pumping. "You and my father argued over me, didn't you?"

"Now where would you get such a notion?" McCoy wondered if she might have heard voices raised and pressed her ear to Spock's door.

She shrugged. "Once I tried getting him to argue with Admiral Kirk, but it didn't work for long. You two are easier."

 _Here we go again,_ thought McCoy. The child was always trying to dig her way into trouble. "T'Beth," he said patiently, "any disagreement I may have had with Spock was not because of anything you said or did." But of course she already knew that, deep down. That wasn't what she needed to hear. Rising, he went to her side and boldly started over. "You're right, we did have a disagreement. I think there are some things you should know about the past, but your father wants to keep it quiet. He worries about hurting you. He loves you too much."

"Ha!" Staring at her feet, T'Beth pumped harder. "He doesn't love me and I don't love him, either. I don't even hate him anymore. There's something lots better than hate." The blocks spun with a vicious burst of energy. "There's _indifference."_

McCoy heard the sorrow beneath the words and reached for her hand. His comforting touch seemed to ease some of the tension in her lean body. "That's a very lonely solution," he said. "Maybe we can figure out something better."


	2. Chapter 2

"Jim!" The name slipped out as Spock turned a corner on deck two and came face to face with Admiral Kirk. Relief made him go shaky. It took a discouraging amount of effort just to stand up straight. "Admiral," he said, having less success regulating his voice. It sounded ragged, uncontrolled. "I have been looking for you."

Kirk's hazel eyes appraised him at painfully close range. The sympathy in their depths was almost as hard to endure as the more obvious look of disapproval on the admiral's face. Spock knew he should not be seen in his present state, but he had reached a decision and the matter was too important to delay any further.

"I was coming to visit you." Pointedly Kirk added, "Shouldn't you be in your quarters?"

Spock felt a tremor beginning in his left arm. Joining his hands behind his back, he squared his shoulders. "I need to speak to you about our course."

"Then you know?" Kirk said, surprised. "You must be looking forward to a little scientific diversion. We should reach orbit by noon."

Spock looked at him in confusion. "I was not aware that we had changed course. Are we traveling back to Vulcan?"

"No, toward the second planet in the Beta 10 system. The science officer thought it would be an interesting experience for the trainees—a little star study, a little long range planetary mapping, maybe even a beam down if Beta can behave herself."

Spock sorted through his memories. It seemed that Beta 10 was a variable star at the outer boundary of the sector. But these days he could not always depend on his memory, so he kept silent.

"Spock, I…" Kirk moved a little closer and dropped his voice. "I hope you don't mind T'Beth being aboard ship a few extra days. I know McCoy doesn't."

 _So apparently McCoy had been consulted rather than T'Beth's own father._ More than anything Spock wanted her off the Enterprise, away from the doctor, but he could not tell Kirk that without explaining why. Knowing that it would not be enough, he said, "It is time that she return to Vulcan."

"I wish I'd know," Kirk said with honest regret. "What's up with her, anyway? She's sure been giving _me_ the cold shoulder—but at least she's staying out of trouble, eh?"

Spock drew in a slow breath. He felt lightheaded and annoyed beyond all reason. He wanted to say, _I am afraid there is trouble coming, irreparable trouble, but there is nothing I can do about it…_

"Spock?"

"Yes," Spock managed to say, "she is staying out of trouble. What more can we ask? Considering T'Beth's record, you have been more than generous allowing her back aboard the Enterprise. Thank you, Jim."

Kirk's eyes gently searched him. "Spock, she isn't just _any_ child. Why don't you go get some rest now?"

Nodding, Spock walked away while there was still some control left.

ooooo

The hours passed slowly for Spock, tedious periods of inactivity alternating with unsatisfactory attempts at study. He could not keep his mind focused on anything for very long—on anything, that is, but T'Beth and Doctor McCoy. His schedule of injections called for an early lunch. At the mess hall he ate a special high calorie diet ordered by the doctor. These days, it seemed McCoy was controlling every aspect of Spock's life, but it was an obviously embarrassed Doctor Chapel who delivered the next dose of strardus to the cabin. She had never grown comfortable with his addiction, and knowing her feelings for him made Spock equally ill at ease.

At last he was alone. After recovering from the first effects of the drug, he retired to his meditation alcove. It was more like another form of rest than a true meditative exercise. The day's confrontations had left him physically and mentally shaken. Sleep might have been more beneficial, but assuming the ritual pose had the bittersweet comfort of familiarity. It was a thoroughly Vulcan thing to do, even as his Vulcanness slipped further and further away. The thought brought a pang of remorse.

All through Spock's childhood, his father had preached the superiority of the Vulcan way, and as a boy Spock had struggled hard to be a proper Vulcan son and win Sarek's approval. But he was not like other Vulcans. Mental and emotional control had always been more of an effort for him, and now it seemed as if he was losing the struggle altogether.

Spock caught himself staring into empty space. Once more he closed his eyes, forcing his body to quietude, but his drug-charged mind ran on…

… _How much more must I lose before this is over?_

 _If only McCoy would keep silent and not tell T'Beth._

 _And if does tell her? What then?_

 _Then it is truly over. She will know what part I chose so many years ago. She will know my failure. The bitter, destructive hatred of her grandmother will be visited upon the child, and I will lose her completely…_

His thoughts were drifting yet again, filling the meditative void with futile speculation. Impatient with himself, Spock abruptly rose from his stool—and bumped into a small, warm body.

T'Beth backed away, rubbing her arm.

Startled, Spock snapped, "I have told you never to disturb my meditation."

He regretted the words immediately. This was their first exchange since leaving Vulcan and now, due to his lack of control, T'Beth's eyes were growing large and moist, as if she might burst out crying. Gentling his voice, he said, "I…did not mean to be abrupt with you," all the while wondering, _has McCoy told her? Is that why she is here?_

He searched the golden-brown eyes for signs of anger or accusation, and finding none, removed his meditation robe and hung it in the closet. And still she just looked at him.

 _She is afraid,_ Spock realized. Its unmistakable currents radiated from the child, intensifying his own uneasiness. Sitting down, he carefully said, "Perhaps you should spend less time in the Medical Department. Doctor McCoy likes you very much, but he has many responsibilities. I am concerned that you are keeping him away from his work."

The child made no response. Stepping closer, her fingers tightened around the arm of his chair. "Father," she said at last, "have you ever lied to me?"

Spock's eyebrow climbed. This was not at all what he had expected from her—but with T'Beth, one never knew quite _what_ to expect. "No," he replied, "I have never lied to you."

"Then you always answer truthfully."

"Yes."

"Will you tell me the truth now?"

Spock hesitated as he sensed a trap tightening around him.

"Will you?" she repeated.

"Yes," he replied, "of course."

Her chin rose and she forced out the words, "Where were you all the time I was little?"

Silence blanketed the room. Spock looked away, his mind and body frozen. _How could he not have seen it coming?_ Clearing the panic from his throat, he said, "T'Beth, I have told you…"

"About prisons and chains. But I know you weren't in prison. You weren't locked up anywhere, and you had money for traveling. You could've gone to Ildarani anytime." Her intense young voice quavered ominously, her eyes brimmed with tears. "So where _were_ you?"

Spock glanced down at his hands. How could they be so steady? Inside, he was shaking apart. "The prison and chains were only…figurative. I was serving aboard the Enterprise the majority of that time."

"That's not what I mean. I know _where_ you were. Why weren't you ever with _me?"_ Tears spilled from her eyes, a sob shook her, but T'Beth bit her lip and waited for an answer. Those young, vulnerable eyes demanded the truth. _Now or never,_ they said. _Shut me out and I will never forget. Or forgive._

Spock rose as suddenly as any jittery human and walked a few paces across the room, where he stopped himself and tried to think logically. But he found that he could not evoke logic or rationality of any kind. _Blast McCoy for his cleverness!_ It was not answers he had fed the child, but questions. McCoy had known that was all T'Beth would need. He had known that even a crippled Vulcan would be compelled to answer honestly.

His eyes came to rest on a cabinet shelf, where an unopened bottle of brandy was displayed. It had been a gift from Jim Kirk on the eve of Spock's first command training cruise aboard the Enterprise. "Someday you might need it," Kirk had teased, "with that bunch."

Spock needed help now, but it would not come from a brandy bottle. He turned and reached behind him for the cabinet, steadying himself, hiding the trembling that had finally reached his fingertips. All his Vulcan resources were depleted by disease, perverted by drugs. There was no inner strength left to tap. He felt empty and exposed and dangerously out of control. This could not have come at a worse time.

And T'Beth was still waiting.

Spock looked at his daughter, the slim reed of a girl with her deceptively Vulcan features— _his_ features. Whatever qualities T'Beth had inherited from her mother remained to be seen, but the girl's passionate determination reminded him very much of Adrianna, and he knew that he must answer that determination with a Vulcan's honesty—insofar as he was capable.

"Very well," he said, but his voice faltered. T'Beth's eyes bored into him. Tightening his grip on the cabinet, he thought aloud. "Background. If you are to understand, you must know first of all…"

"Just tell me," T'Beth urged.

With the uncomfortable feeling that their roles had been reversed, Spock nodded. "The story…must begin with your grandmother. When Justrelle was young, newly married. A group of Donari raiders attacked Sydok while she was working there with her husband. She witnessed many atrocities, including her husband's murder. She herself was captured, taken to Donari and…used…in breeding experiments." He paused. "One such experiment involving a captured Sydok resulted in your mother's birth."

Spock watched a slow blush spread over his daughter's face. Apparently the child understood well enough. "Your grandmother's ordeal left her embittered and very antagonistic toward alien-looking men."

"But Mama liked you…"

 _Mama._ It was the child's name for her grandmother, who in every practical sense had been her mother. Spock shook his head. "From the very beginning she vigorously opposed my relationship with Adrianna. She could not stand the sight of me."

Looking stunned, T'Beth sank into the chair. Then her eyes rose. "But she brought me to your ship, she handed me over to you. Why would she do that if…?"

"She was dying. There was nowhere else for you to go, other than an orphanage. She disliked that idea and had heard that my family was wealthy and could provide you with advantages." He did not tell T'Beth that her physical appearance made raising her difficult for Justrelle. He had no way of knowing how that had affected the woman's decision. "She granted us a trial period together, after which you would have chosen for yourself. As it turned out, she never survived the week."

T'Beth's eyes glistened with fresh tears. "I knew a little about you from Mother's diary, but if I asked my grandmother anything more, she'd just go quiet…until finally I stopped asking."

"Silence," Spock explained, "was her revenge against me. I was to have no part in your life, not even a dishonorable mention." He searched for a balance between truth and delicacy. "It was a form of revenge…for her daughter's death. You see, since I…fathered you, Justrelle blamed me when your mother died as a result of the pregnancy."

T'Beth thought this over for a moment. Then her face hardened ominously. "Or maybe she blamed you for running out on me."

Drained, Spock found his way to a chair and sat down. He could not possibly tell a child the entire story. T'Beth was too young to hear of Sy-jeeral seduction and its bitter aftermath, especially when the Sy-jeera was her own mother. "Justrelle went wild with grief. First she had lost her husband to the Donari, then she had lost her daughter to a Vulcan. She was determined that I would have to part of you, and her legal position was a solid one."

"But you're my _father!"_

"Yes," Spock said, his voice unsteady, "but your mother and I were not married…and there is no provision for families on a starship. It was only logical that you go to a grandmother capable of providing a stable home life."

T'Beth stood and glared at him. "You didn't even _try_ , did you? You cared more about a starship than your own child. You abandoned me."

Spock gripped the arms of his chair until his hands ached. He scarcely noticed; at present, it was the least of his pain. Here was the nightmare that had pursued him all the way from the galactic rim to the desolate world of Kolinahr.

"Admit it," T'Beth said thickly.

Only a child would demand a swift, uncomplicated answer. For almost thirteen years Spock had sought that simple answer within, and failed to find it. Now he felt the rising flames of drug hunger licking along every nerve, making it impossible to think clearly. "Your grandmother laid claim to you. She resolved to keep you…any way she could…and she was capable of…" _Of what?_ Nothing would have kept him from a child he truly wanted.

Feeling the heat of shame, Spock averted his face and said, "There is nothing more I can say that would not hurt you."

He heard the light, quick footsteps of a fleeing child. He heard the cabin door sigh shut. Then he was alone.

ooooo

T'Beth ran. Through tear-blurred eyes she saw people stopping to stare at her, and she hated them. She wished a huge meteor would slam through the hull and suck the air out of their lungs. She wished every last one of them were dead. And most of all, _him._

Why couldn't he have died on Gamma Vertas IV? Then, at least, she could have mourned him. She could have remembered him with questions in her mind, never knowing how completely he had rejected her. She could have made up her own version of the past, like she used to, and maybe even believed it. But not now.

His words pounded in her head as she ran through the corridors. _Nothing more…there is nothing more…nothing more…_

He hadn't cared when she was a baby and he still didn't. It was all just a matter of Vulcan duty to him—a burden of responsibility that he had shifted to his parents. That's all she was to him, just a burden.

Her lungs aching, she pulled up at a turbolift and pressed the touch plate. The doors slid open. She jumped in and slumped, fighting for breath, against the compartment wall. Sweat trickled down her face as she tried to think.

Okay, she knew that he didn't want her. And she certainly didn't want _him_. She didn't ever want to see him again— _him_ , with his tight little Vulcan world of logic and discipline and don't-touch-me, don't interrupt-me, don't-bother-me-with-your-feelings. She didn't even want to be on his stupid ship with his precious friend Kirk. They both thought they were so smart, but she was smart, too. She had learned a lot on her previous stay aboard the Enterprise. Now she would show them just how much she had learned.

"Auxiliary," she said.

The lift deposited her in an empty corridor of the forward Auxiliary Section. Wiping her eyes with her sleeve, she sneaked along silently to the Auxiliary Transporter Room. It was empty in there, too. From the doorway she could see the control panel was locked down, as usual. This part of the ship was only used in emergencies.

T'Beth moved behind the controls. As her fingers brushed the levers, a wave of excitement swept through her. _Yes, it might just work. Mama had always said she was bright. Not_ _him_ _, though._ To Spock she was nothing but a backward, ignorant colony girl. It never made any difference how hard she studied, how much she learned. It was never quite enough for him.

Well, now she'd show him! There wasn't a corner of this ship that she didn't know something about—including the transporter rooms, and how some computer entry codes remained fixed for long periods, as a matter of convenience. The captain's daughter had been fond of looking over shoulders, seeing exactly how things were done. And the crew had always enjoyed showing her

Remembering, she tapped in a series of numbers and code symbols and was rewarded with a surge of power on the board. Her heart pounding, she stood back and studied the jumble of information on display.

She had already known that the Enterprise was orbiting a planet suitable for human life. It was the perfect way out for her—a dangerous, lonely way out, but right now that hardly mattered. She would get along, somehow. And if she didn't? Maybe she wished _she_ were dead, too.

T'Beth focused on the control panel. It was ridiculously easy to operate, once you knew the basics. The equipment did all the hardest parts. It only took her a couple of minutes to lock onto the coordinates she chose, a nice level area near mountains and streams. The valley temperature was mild. She could probably survive down there—at least for a while. Beyond that, she didn't really care. Why should she? _He_ didn't.

Still, T'Beth lingered over the final decision as her thoughts went to Doctor McCoy. Bones would miss her…and she would miss him, too. She was standing with her finger over the auto-delay button, short-set and ready to go, when a voice burst over the panel intercom. She jumped guiltily.

"Bridge to Auxiliary Transport, respond and identify."

With a quick motion T'Beth switched off the video comlink, but not before catching a glimpse of Commander Uhura peering over the shoulder of a trainee.

"T'Beth!" Uhura's voice took on a motherly, no-nonsense tone. "Young lady, what do you think you're doing? Get away from that equipment immediately!"

T'Beth knew that the override procedure would already be started. They would try to cut her off from the bridge. She heard an intercom alert calling over the Auxiliary Section. If she didn't act now, it would be too late. She would be caught and hauled back to her father…or Admiral Kirk.

Pressing the auto-delay button, she ran for the platform. There was barely enough time to center her herself on a locus before reality began to shimmer. As the room slipped from view, she seemed to hear footsteps and a voice calling, "No! Get back here, ye little—"

ooooo

"…ye little hellion!" Montgomery Scott slid to a stop, clumsily catching himself against the transporter console. A faint glitter of light faded above the platform. Swiftly he reset the controls and threw the levers. His breath came in winded gusts as he stared at the empty air, waiting.

Nothing happened.

Scott rechecked the controls, his eyes darting about in disbelief. He punched open the intercom. "Bridge! What are ye doin' shuttin' me down? She'd just barely gone! I could have had her!"

Uhura looked at him from the screen, dismayed. "Oh, no. Mister Scott, I'm sorry. The admiral ordered—well, he's on his way down right now."

"Get me power!" Scott demanded, red-faced. "I may still be able to catch her!"

Not waiting for a response, he crossed the room and took a landing kit from storage. By the time he slung the pack over his shoulder and returned to the console, lights glimmered on the board. The controls were already set. Cursing the unkindness of fate and the general perversity of children, he pressed the auto-delay button and headed for the unknown.

ooooo

The moment of T'Beth's departure stretched before Spock, a black aching void of failure and remorse. Dully he thought, _I should have told her everything. The child might have understood. She might have…_

He remembered the good feeling of his daughter's arms clasping him. He remembered the way her eyes had sometimes held his, so open and honest, glowing with genuine affection. He remembered that she was gone _._ _Permanently._ The rift between them felt like the tearing of an old wound. Only this time, there would be no healing.

Spock slumped forward in his chair, slow relentless shudders of pain breaking over him in waves. How would he make it through the next hour to his injection? His nerves were raw with need, making his muscles cramp, his insides churn. He was not going to make it. McCoy must be persuaded to deliver the strardus ahead of time. Wasn't this _his_ doing? Once the doctor saw his condition, there would be no argument. Intending to call McCoy, he reached for his com badge, but he was not wearing his jacket.

Spock forced himself up. For a while he stood holding the arm of the chair, willing strength back into his body. No amount of effort could stop the shaking. It had already gone beyond the point of conscious control. Only strardus could save him now.

Straightening, he tried walking to the desk—one staggering step, then another as the carpet rippled and flowed under his boots like ocean water, confusing his sense of balance. The entire room was alive with motion. The walls tilted. He saw a flash of his desk coming at him fast. It flew up and slammed against his side, shoving his outthrust arms into papers and equipment.

Spock slid, aching, to the floor. The cabin spun in rhythm to the sick pounding of his head. A bitter taste rose in the back of his throat…

There were voices…

"…Engineering to sick bay…all set on that disaster drill, 1300 hours…turkey sandwiches that taste like…intensify scanning procedures, Beta's starting to…Bridge to Auxiliary Transport, respond and identify…apple cobbler, I repeat, apple cobbler… T'Beth! What do you think you're doing? Get out of there…and have someone in maintenance check on it…"

Something in the mad rush of words drew Spock's attention. He rolled onto his back and tried to concentrate on listening. His fall must have set off the activity scanner on his desktop intercom. The jumble of messages poured out in a steady stream…

"…she's starting on her way down with the medical trainees…picking up a significant increase of radiation now, stand by…attention all hands in Auxiliary Section…unauthorized activity in Auxiliary Transport…stop the child, stop the child…"

 _The child!_

A hellish certainty crystallized in Spock's mind. Charge after charge of adrenaline exploded through him, and he was on his feet, moving. He was at the door.

"… _Bridge!"_ Scott's cry boomed over the intercom. _"What are ye doin' shuttin' me down? She'd just barely gone! I could have had her!"_

Spock ran for the turbolift.

"Auxiliary," a ragged voice said as the lift doors shut. "Transporter room." The compartment was moving before Spock realized he had spoken the words. Lights rushed past, blinking white rows shifting vertical to horizontal, spinning like a Minneapolis Ferris wheel. Bracing himself in a corner, he held on tight.

 _T'Beth was in danger!_

The air felt thick, difficult to breathe. It dragged at him as he exited the lift and ran through the Auxiliary corridor.

 _She might already be dead!_

He seemed to fly around a corner. Uniforms scattered before him. A wide-eyed trainee narrowly escaped collision. Someone called out for the captain. Ignoring them, he entered the transporter room.

His hands found a set of controls. The readings meant nothing to him, senseless dashes of light and shadow. _Where was he? What was he doing here?_ Only his fingers seemed to remember, moving expertly, making adjustments, setting the equipment for a journey whose purpose had slipped his mind. _It was, however, mortally important._

His hands finished their work. He turned to the transporter platform, but a fair-haired woman was standing in his way.

"No," she said, throwing her hands up, fingers spread wide. "You can't do down there like that!"

A strange mixture of emotions coursed through him as he brushed Doctor Fielding aside. Then he was on the platform, disintegrating into a sparkling pillar…

ooooo

Lauren stood by, helpless, as the transport chamber emptied. Spock was gone. The anxious pounding of her heart grew steadily louder until it seemed to echo through the Auxiliary corridor. But it was only the sound of boots.

Admiral Kirk burst through the doorway and stopped to stare at her, the anger on his face overlaid with surprise. Then, out of breath, he went to the transporter console. "What's happening?" he asked, glancing over the controls. "Are they both still down there?"

"Both?" Lauren was confused. "I don't know, sir. I only saw the captain go down."

"The _captain!"_ Kirk stared at her again. "Spock? You're kidding. _Please_ tell me you're kidding."

"No, admiral. I was bringing some trainees to Auxiliary to get made up for a disaster drill when Captain Spock came—well, he darn near knocked some of us down as he ran through. Considering his medical situation, I thought I'd better follow him. He came here. I tried to stop him from beaming down, but he wouldn't listen."

"Damn!" Kirk's fist slammed the console. "That makes _three_ of them down there!" He worked some instruments and grew even more irritated by what he found. "Not a solitary lifeform reading. Can't begin to get a fix with that star interfering. _Dammit!"_

A sick feeling grew in the pit of Lauren's stomach. "You mean you can't beam him back?"

" _Them_ , Doctor. Spock's daughter and Commander Scott are down there, too." Kirk kept his eyes on the controls. "And no, we can't beam any of them back unless their signal gets through."

"By communicator. Of course." Lauren went to the storage closet and strapped on a landing pack. She double-checked the medkit hanging from her shoulder. Hidden beneath the regular supplies was the emergency ampule of strardus she had carried since Gamma Vertas IV.

Kirk stopped fussing over the gauges to look at her. "What do you think you're doing?"

Wondering much the same thing, Lauren positioned herself on the transporter platform. "I don't know about the others, sir, but the captain can't give you a signal. He wasn't wearing his jacket, so I doubt he has a com badge. He didn't take a landing pack, either. Admiral." Her voice lowered with determination. "There's something else that the captain's going to need, and pretty darn soon." She gave the medkit a pat. "Please. Let me go to him."

Kirk was ready with a firm "no", but somehow the word never reached his lips. Lauren's blue eyes pleaded more eloquently than any argument he might have dredged up. She still felt responsible for Spock's addiction. It wasn't enough to have merely saved the Vulcan's life. She could not stay safely aboard ship while Spock suffered from withdrawal.

"Alright," he said grudgingly. "You've had some survival training or they wouldn't have let you aboard ship. Use your tricorder, if it'll function down there. Try to find Spock. And if you happen to run across T'Beth, you have my permission to bring her back any way you can." He muttered something to himself before adding, "Call in as soon as you find anyone. Keep at it. I haven't been able to raise Scotty, but a signal might slip through eventually. You've got one hour. If I don't hear from any of you by then, I'll send down a shuttle with a search party…conditions permitting."

ooooo

The spongy ground pulled at T'Beth's shoes as she sprinted up a long, grassy incline, but it felt good to be outdoors, running. On Vulcan, the torrid heat and thin air made this sort of exercise impossible for her.

Near the top of the hill a rock rolled under her foot, and she fell hard. Shaken but unhurt, she lay in the cool grass for a moment, then sat up. Below her the green, sparsely wooded valley stretched as still and peaceful as a dream. Why hadn't this world been colonized like her home planet, Ildarani? There was little time for her to wonder, barely even a chance to catch her breath. Off in the distance a white shape kept moving toward her. She watched Mister Scott as he trudged between the trees, consulting his tricorder. It made no sense for the Chief Engineer of all people to be out tracking her. He was too old and fat to be very effective. Both Father and Admiral Kirk would know that. If this was their idea of a search effort, it proved how little they really cared about getting her back.

 _Fine,_ she thought, tears stinging her eyes, _'cause I don't ever want to go back!_

More determined than ever, T'Beth stood up and took another look at her pursuer. By now Scotty's face was probably very red. He would be all sweaty in that engineering outfit. Though she couldn't help feeling a little sorry for him, she wished that his tricorder would meet with a fatal accident.

As if in answer to her wish, Scott came to an abrupt halt and fiddled with the instrument's settings. His head rose and he loped off in the wrong direction, as if something were chasing him. He disappeared into a clump of trees.

It gave T'Beth an eerie feeling. _Was an animal out there? What sort of dangerous creatures might be on this planet?_ As she gazed down the valley, the daylight seemed to brighten. Her skin began to tingle, then burn. Some inborn sense of survival kept her from glancing curiously at the sky. Instead, following Scott's example, she ran for cover. She was almost to the trees when a white flash lit the world from horizon to horizon. Crying out, she covered her eyes and scrambled blindly toward the shade.

ooooo

Lauren was not sure what was happening in the sky, but she resented having to huddle in a clump of shrubbery just when her tricorder had latched onto a fine set of Vulcan readings, and not far away, either. Every wasted minute would make Spock that much harder to find and that much harder to deal with when she did find him.

The light storm had drastically increased the level of electronic interference. Both the tricorder and the communicator refused to work, no matter how she toyed with the adjustments. For now, she was on her own.

Lauren applied some medication to her tender, sunburned face, then wiggled into a more comfortable position for waiting. A gust of cool blew down from the hills, changed direction, and rattled the leaves around her. Overhead, thick gray clouds were piling up fast. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

The oppressive heat and glare of the sun vanished behind the cloud cover. Lauren crawled out of the bushes, brushed herself off, and tried the communicator again. All the frequencies were still jammed with static. The tricorder was just as useless.

"Okay," she said aloud, "this isn't the first time you've been lost. No reason to get excited. Just tend to business, Laurie. The search party might be here any minute."

A heavy raindrop spattered her cheek. She found the rain slicker in her landing pack and pulled it over herself just as the sprinkles turned into a downpour. Something wickedly large and black glided out of the churning sky, into a treetop. Drawing out a phaser, Lauren fought an urge to sneak back into the bushes and hide. The temperature was dropping fast. Spock was alone and sick in the storm, without any rain gear, without even a jacket. She had to find him.

ooooo

T'Beth was afraid. The wind raised shivers on her wet skin as she moved along the wooded hillside looking for some kind of shelter. But it was more than the wind unnerving her, or the lightning, or Mister Scott shouting her name into the storm. There was a darkness creeping over her, a sick desperate feeling that she remembered well. This was now she had felt when Mama took her to the Enterprise and handed her over to the stranger named Spock. This was now she had felt when Spock forced her to sit through the nightmare of Mama's funeral a few days later.

Through the slanting rain, she saw an opening under the roots of an old fallen tree. Picking up a long stick, she carefully approached the dark hole and probed inside. A pair of armor-plated rodents scurried out, making her heart jump, but she had grown up in a forested world full of strange surprises. She knew that the presence of such small animals likely meant there were no snakes or carnivorous creatures in the hole. Gripping her stick like a weapon, she worked up her courage and slowly eased through the black, root-tangled opening.

ooooo

"T'Beth!" Lauren stopped to listen, then called again. "Mister Scott! Captain Spock!"

Still no answer. Shouting against the storm was only making her go hoarse. Wind roared down the valley, throwing rain at her body in stinging cold sheets. She could barely hear herself yell. It seemed impossible that anyone else could hear her—with or without Vulcan ears.

Resting on the downwind side of a tree trunk, she tried to gauge her progress toward the western rim of the valley. The mountainside looked as if it might hold caves, or at least a few hollows large enough to shelter in. Maybe the others had noticed, too.

Cupping her hands around her mouth, she called out, "Captain! Anyone! Where are you?" A rumble of thunder shook the ground under her feet. The wind-tortured trees groaned and writhed. She was more than ready to be rescued. _Conditions permitting,_ Kirk had said.

Alone in the alien storm, Lauren admitted to herself that there probably would not be any rescue soon. All her instruments were still malfunctioning. If a planet-wide disturbance were to blame, it would have the same effect on the ship's transporters or any shuttlecraft venturing into the atmosphere. If, as she believed, the disturbance was the result of stellar activity, the Enterprise may have had to break orbit. That meant she and the others were stranded. For Spock it meant almost certain death if she failed to find him. Even if she did locate him, he could very well die without the drug he needed throughout each day.

"Spock!" she screamed.

Only the savage wind answered. With cold-stiffened fingers Lauren tightened down the hood of her rain slicker. Leaving the meager shelter of the tree, she fought her way westward through the storm. Shivering and miserable, she entered a clearing. Tangles of soggy grass and vines slowed her progress. With each step she felt her strength ebbing and she began to wonder if any of them would make it out of this alive. After a time her legs seemed to find their own way, and she was almost to the other side of the meadow before noticing the trampled line of vegetation she had been following.

 _Animals,_ she thought numbly. _A game trail…could be dangerous._

But walking the established trail was so much easier than breaking her own. With one hand on her phaser she continued on, shuffling through a carpet of fallen leaves. The trail came to the edge of a forest. Lauren stumbled into something solid, but yielding. She stopped and stared at the dark mound, a chill of apprehension creeping over her. _An animal! Dead? Or alive?_

Under wet leaves, she saw something move.

ooooo

Though T'Beth was out of the storm, she felt far from comfortable. Cold drafts blew through the opening of her hideaway, making her shiver in her wet clothes. Inside the hole it was damp and dirty. She tried not to think of the warmth and safety she had left behind on the Enterprise. _Or_ the food. It was long past dinnertime and she was hungry. Huddling at the front of the hole, she watched lightning streak across the ever-darkening sky. Sometimes between cracks of thunder she thought she heard someone still calling her. She listened hard. She strained to see human movement in the rush of rain and caught a glimpse of something moving her way. Once more she heard her name carried on the wind and felt a sudden aching in her throat. _Scotty!_

Biting her lip, she watched the storm-lashed engineer look around, miss her, and start to turn away. A wrenching need to yell out gripped her, but the thought of being taken back in disgrace was more than she could bear. She cried silently as Scott headed back down the hill.

Another bolt of lightning sizzled the air and struck with a deafening impact. A tree near Scott exploded into flame. He landed face down in the grass.

Forgetting everything but her concern for him, T'Beth wiggled out of her hiding place and charged down the hillside. The charred tree was smoking harmlessly when she reached the soggy, shaken engineer. "You okay?" she gasped.

"You!" Scott sat up in his rain slicker, glowering. "Aye, there's more'n enough strength left in me to—" Struggling to his feet, he grasped T'Beth firmly by her shoulders. "There'll be no more nonsense, do ye hear?"

"Don't expect me to go back," flared T'Beth.

"To the Enterprise?" Scott gave a weary, joyless smile. "Lass, ye needn't worry about _that_ right now. This ion storm's playin' the devil's own havoc with our equipment. We'll both be stayin' here for—" Another loud clap of thunder interrupted him. "Preferably in a more sheltered spot."

T'Beth almost regretted going down to him, but even Scott's stern company was welcome just now. And maybe there was some food in that pack of his. As long as communications were out, there was no harm staying together for a while. Shivering, she said, "I know a place out of the rain."

The engineer held her hand tightly as they climbed the hill together.

ooooo

 _Thank God for caves_. Lauren ached with weariness as she helped her half-conscious captain slip through a narrow cleft in the rocks. A few feet beyond, they stumbled into an open, echoing area. The alien darkness seemed to crawl around her, but she knew it was only an illusion. She had phasered the cavern before entering.

Easing Spock to the ground, she fumbled in her pack for a flashlight, switched it on, and swept the area for stunned creatures. The only sign of habitation was a fur-lined stick nest in one corner, long abandoned by the look of it. The walls of the cavern sparkled like granite, good solid walls without any back passages for animals to hide in. Water dripped from an overhead fissure that might act as a chimney for campfire smoke.

Lauren dragged the disintegrating nest closer to Spock and brought in an armload of windfalls. A touch of a lighter ignited the tinder-dry nesting material, spreading light and warmth. The wet pieces of wood smoked and hissed noisily before catching fire.

Satisfied, Lauren turned her attention to Spock. Peeling off his sodden shirt and pants, she covered him in the landing pack blanket and her rain slicker, but he continued to shiver. She had given him a small dose of strardus in the woods, just enough to get him moving alongside her. That left very little of the drug to keep him going until they reached the ship. What he needed was a dry, warm bed and tight medical supervision. He should be taken to sickbay immediately.

Tapping her com badge, she pleaded with the lonely void of static. "Doctor Fielding to Enterprise. Doctor Fielding to Enterprise. Admiral Kirk, can you hear me? I've found the captain."

She drew out the landing pack communicator and tried it without success. A deep boom of thunder shook the cavern. With a shiver of her own, Lauren took out the small Water Genie and set it running near the cave entrance where it would gather moisture from the air. One cup an hour, if they were lucky. Now, for the waiting.

As Lauren sank down beside the fire, her gaze wandered to the captain's taut, severe features. With some embarrassment she remembered an incident on Gamma Vertas, when he touched her—rather ardently—with his mind. He had been ill then, too, and pumped full of strardus. The drug did that to people. Even more recently he had forced a kiss on her while under the influence of an alien symbiant. She found herself wondering what part strardus had in that cruel kiss and the beating that followed. And what might happen now, when the strardus ran out?

ooooo

Scott's stomach growled in protest as he put away, untouched, what T'Beth had left him of his ration packet. He turned off the flashlight. Wrapped in a blanket, T'Beth moved closer, as if to escape the darkness. There was not much comfort to be found down among the tree roots. A thick layer of dead leaves softened their nest, but did little to assuage the cold. The hole was too damp. Their clothes were too wet. The branches Scott had wedged into the entrance kept blowing away, leaving them vulnerable to every draft.

Mumbling sleepily, T'Beth pressed her body against him and shivered. Scott could have happily paddled her well-fed behind for getting them into such a fix, but it was hard to stay very angry with such a miserable bairn. He had never had any children of his own, only nieces and nephews he rarely saw. Now, stranded on an alien world, he found a certain grudging appeal in the touch of a _sleeping_ child.

"Ach," Scott grumbled to himself, "ye're goin' soft." But his arm sneaked around the girl anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

Lauren awoke suddenly, her mind full of a noisy, confused dream. With a shock she remembered where she was, and sat up. Spock had moved. She found him on his feet, huddled in the blanket, groping along the cave wall like a trapped beast. The dying flames of the fire cast eerie shadows.

"Captain," she said, forcing her voice to sound steady and controlled.

The Vulcan did not respond.

"Captain, it's Doctor Fielding. I'm here with you."

His right hand fumbled over the stone with a mindless urgency that was frightening. Lauren slowly rose and moved up beside him. _What if he attacked her?_

Quietly she said, "You're not alone here. It's going to get better. You'll make it because that daughter of yours is depending on you. Believe me, she'll need someone on her side when we all get back to the Enterprise."

Her words seemed to have no effect. For a moment longer Lauren watched him dig his fingernails into cracks. Then she pulled on the rain slicker, tucked the phaser into her beltline, and left with the flashlight to gather more wood. Outside, an icy gale almost knocked her to the ground. Rain lashed her face as she gathered the nearest windfalls and ran for shelter, the beam of her flashlight bobbing.

As she entered the cavern something seized her. Gasping, she dropped the wood. Her flashlight clattered to the ground, but cast enough of a glow for her to see Spock was holding her. Soberly she faced the threat of violence in his dark eyes.

"Where _is_ it!" he demanded.

Should she just hand the strardus over? And when that last bit was gone? What then? Maybe this time he would kill her. With his drug-driven strength, he could have his way so easily. She closed her eyes, trembling as his powerful hand settled over her throat. A roar of blood and thunder filled her ears…

ooooo

Slowly T'Beth rose from a dark, troubled dream into the refuge of a warm embrace. "Father?" she mumbled, still half asleep.

"No, lass," came a soft reply, "only me."

The engineer's voice brought her fully awake and she pulled away from him. How could she have imagined it was Spock holding her, how could she have forgotten her hurt even for a second? "I'm not going back," she announced in the darkness.

Scott yawned. "Ye belong with your father. Spock will be worried, lass, an' he's still not a well man."

"I don't care! Why should I? He doesn't care anything about _me._ "

"That I doubt," Scott said. "I don't know what happened between the two of ye, but runnin' away only makes things worse. Ye'll have a lot to answer for when ye get back—an' ye _are_ goin' back, I'll see to it."

"Never!" T'Beth vowed angrily. She scrambled toward the opening, but Scott caught hold of her arm and unceremoniously yanked her down beside him.

"Enough o' that!" he warned. "Listen here, lass. I'm tired, hungry, and my every bone aches from this miserable hole in the ground. It wouldna take much at all to set off my temper. Just a wee bit more of your sass, or another move like that one, an' I'm likely to give ye more than a piece of my mind—captain's daughter or _not."_

T'Beth subsided into a resentful silence. It was no use provoking the old Scotsman. Sooner or later he would let down his guard and give her a chance to escape.

ooooo

A dull, rhythmic thumping brought Lauren to her senses. She opened her eyes. Pinpoints of light danced on the ceiling of the cave. The right side of her body was bathed in a wonderful dry heat.

 _The fire's burning brighter,_ she realized. _Spock put on the wood and moved me here. I must only have fainted. He didn't hurt me, after all…_

With the thought came a fierce rush of relief that shifted all her concern to the captain. Spock lay face down on the other side of the fire, head cradled in the curve of an arm. The thumping sound came from a bloodied fist as it pounded the cavern floor.

Quietly Lauren sat up and found her medkit lying open on the ground, its contents strewn. With a sinking feeling she checked the sprayhypo. Its ampule of strardus was drained.

"Great," she said under her breath. Spock had helped himself to the last of the drug. The most she could give him now was a sedative or endorphine stimulator, both next to worthless against this hellish kind of withdrawal.

Lauren resisted a surge of fear. _Come on, think positive. Survival, that's all that matters now. We have food from the landing pack, and water. I have the phaser, too. Somehow we'll make it until Kirk finds us. We'll_ _both_ _make it._

But her hands shook as she put the medical supplies back into her kit and went to her patient's side. "This is the worst of it," she promised him, knowing it was probably untrue. "Captain, you're going to get better now. You're going to come out of this and come out of it clean. Do you hear me?"

 _Was he listening?_ Lauren swallowed against an ache in her throat. "I'm so sorry," she choked out. "Starting you on that stuff was the worst thing I've ever done. But what other choice was there? It saved your life." Fighting back tears, she gently placed her hand on his back. "Captain?" she whispered.

He was asleep.

ooooo

T'Beth had not meant to drift off again, especially with Mister Scott clasping her, but over time his body heat had lulled her back to sleep. Annoyed with herself, she lay tense and still in Scott's arms. A hint of dawn outlined the opening of the hole. Judging from the sound of things outside, the storm had calmed down quite a bit. And from all the snorting and rumbling inside, Scott was oblivious to the weather and everything else.

It was time to move on. Hardly daring to breathe, T'Beth inched her way free of the limp arms encircling her. The bed of damp leaves made little sound as she sat up, heart pounding, and looked at the engineer's ghostly shape. He snored harmlessly.

Smiling now, she edged toward the morning light, and freedom. A light breeze spattered her face with drizzle as she poked her head out the hole. It felt colder outside, but unbelievably good. Slowly and carefully she crawled out until only her shoes were in the opening.

 _Bye bye, Scotty,_ she thought, happily climbing to her feet. _So much for you and your lame threats…_

That was when the hands clasped her ankles and dragged her back into the hole.

ooooo

Spock awoke in a cold panic. Remaining as still as possible, he tried to make sense of his primitive surroundings and his own abject misery. There was a sharp aching hollowness, as if he had been gutted and left here to die. Curled up on his side, shivering under a blanket, he tried to sort through the chaos in his mind.

His eyes were drawn to a fire burning beside him. Little by the little the warm, writhing flames helped his thoughts slow down. _Like a meditation lamp_. But where _was_ he? It was too cold, too damp, to be anywhere on Vulcan.

A slow, subtle awareness came over him and he knew that he was not alone. His muscles tensed harder. Then, as if to verify its presence, something touched his shoulder. Recoiling, he rolled over and found a human female wearing a Starfleet uniform.

Doctor Lauren Fielding stared at him, her blue eyes wary, her face smudged. Unruly tendrils of blonde hair had escaped her braid.

She said, "The storm's easing," and picked up a container from the ground. "Here, Captain. Have a drink of water."

 _Captain._ The pounding of his heart subsided. Spock rose shakily onto his elbow and took a swallow, but he was too nauseous to drink more.

"That's alright," Fielding said. "You can take another sip later."

He lay back and watched her handle a medscanner that failed to operate. Clouded memories flowed fitfully, something about solar activity and ionization and the urgent need to find someone.

He said, "There is a person missing."

Studying his face she said, " _You_ were missing…but I found you." The doctor reached down and briefly fingered his cheek with cool fingers. "You've warmed up. How are you feeling?"

 _Not like a Vulcan,_ Spock thought bitterly. Fresh waves of pain broke over him and he was shuddering again, torn by the nerve-wrenching hunger he had come to know well, and hated with every fiber of his being. At the end of his endurance, he gasped, "I can't take this any longer!"

A single tear spilled down Fielding's cheek and she said, "I'm sorry, but you'll have to wait. There _is_ no more. Once we get back aboard ship…"

" _No!"_ he shouted, annoyed that she did not understand. "I cannot live like this any longer! I don't want any more of it! _Never again!"_

ooooo

Overwhelmed with emotion, Lauren stood at the cave entrance, waiting for daylight. She scarcely felt the morning chill. Little by little the drenched landscape brightened until she could see all the way across the valley. Native birds rose from their perches, chattering and soaring through the air.

 _A new day…and he doesn't want any more strardus! Never again!_

Her joy was so intense that she felt certain Mister Scott and T'Beth were also safe and well. Moving a short distance from the cave, she cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted their names.

ooooo

 _Deaf old fool,_ thought T'Beth. Sitting under a tree, she could distinctly hear a woman calling them, yet Scotty took no notice of it as he fiddled with the controls on a communicator. Humans had such poor hearing, and she was glad of it. The last thing she needed around here was another of Starfleet's finest. She was having a hard enough time with the ill-tempered engineer.

Seething, she tugged and chewed at the cord binding her wrists. "Who do you think you are," she complained, "tying me to a tree like an animal. I wasn't running away, why don't you believe me? I just needed to stretch my legs." _And I stretched them real good kicking at you, didn't I?_

Mister Scott ignored her.

The knots were too tight. They made her wrists hurt when she struggled, but she kept at it anyway. If people were calling for them, they would probably be out searching, too.

"Ye may as well save yere strength," Scott said tartly, putting aside the communicator.

T'Beth continued working on the knots while he gathered dead wood into a soggy pile and used his phaser to get it burning. Moving stiffly, he came over and watched her efforts. "Lass," he said, "do ye want them a wee bit tighter? Is that it?"

She stopped and glared at him. The woman wasn't calling anymore. Now if she could only get free of Scott. Boldly meeting his gaze she said, "Oh, go ahead! Cut off all the blood from my hands! Let them turn black and fall off, so they'll haul you in for child abuse!"

" _Child abuse!"_ Scott's face darkened dangerously. " _Child abuse_ , is it? Get off yere backside, ye little hellion, an' I'll show ye some abuse!"

Perhaps, T'Beth considered, she had pushed the man too far. Lowering her head, she coaxed a few tears into her eyes and made her bottom lip quiver. Scott growled one of his Gaelic oaths and started to turn away.

Something chirped.

 _Oh, let it be a bird,_ T'Beth prayed, but the communicator was already in Scott's hands and he was talking through a great big smile.

"Aye, Admiral. The girl is right here with me. Do ye suppose ye could bring us aboard?"

"Hurry up and pack," answered Kirk's voice.

T'Beth tugged frantically at the cord. It held tight. Genuine tears welled in her eyes and she began to cry. "Please," she begged, "please, Mister Scott, untie me first. Don't make me go back like _this."_

It was her last chance to get away and Scott knew it. After throwing together the landing kit, he paused to look at her, communicator ready in his hand. "So it's 'Mister Scott' now, is it?"

" _Please,_ " she begged.

His eyes hard on her, he spoke into the communicator, "Two to beam up."

ooooo

Montgomery Scott and Lauren Fielding had been sent to their quarters to rest. Spock remained in sickbay, under treatment. After consulting with Doctor Fielding, McCoy had agreed to carry forward the detoxification process that began on the planet. That left one final matter for McCoy to settle.

Seated in his office, T'Beth sullenly looked on as he personally signed her clean bill of health. There was no reason to keep her in sickbay. A guard waited outside, ready to escort her to the cabin she shared with Uhura, and see that she stayed there. Admiral Kirk's orders—and no, McCoy had not fought Jim on that one, even though he felt plenty guilty himself. It was at his urging that T'Beth had gone off to her father. It was his scheme that had backfired and put four lives at risk. He never should have interfered, yet here he was, about to shoot off his mouth again. But how else would this mess ever get straightened out?

McCoy could not forget T'Beth's stricken look when she saw her father hurried into sickbay on a grav-stretcher. That single moment, however brief, proved how much she really cared about Spock. If she could just be made to understand him a little better, that caring might evolve into a decent father-daughter relationship.

He looked at the child perched stiffly, almost Spock-like, beside his desk. And he figured, _she probably blames me, too. And why not? I sent her to beard the lion, and she got bit._ Now it was up to him to bind her wounds.

He said, "You did a very foolish thing when you used that transporter. It was because of the talk with your father, wasn't it?"

T'Beth was silent.

"He told you something that upset you."

Ignoring him, she gazed at the fingers curled in her lap. She was giving him the treatment, and after enjoying her affection for so long, it stung. "Look, I know Spock. He wouldn't intentionally do anything to hurt you. Why, when he found out that you'd beamed down, he risked his life to go after you."

T'Beth gave him a cold look. "So did Mister Scott with his rope."

It was all over the ship. Everyone was laughing about Scotty bringing T'Beth home on a leash. McCoy worked to keep a straight face. "I'm not so sure I wouldn't have tied you up myself, the way you were acting. And yes, Mister Scott did risk his life, but not in the same way your father did. You see—" Here he would have to be careful. "You see, during his illness on Gamma Vertas IV, Spock's body came to depend on a medication that helped him recover. If this medicine were taken away suddenly, he would get very sick, and could even die. It was almost time for his next injection when he beamed down after you. He knew what that would mean, but he went anyway."

"Sure," she said with sarcasm. "The special medicine that you can't get on Vulcan. He had to stay _here_ and recover."

McCoy felt like giving her a good shake. "That's right. He _had_ to stay aboard ship. His medicine isn't even _legal_ on Vulcan. Do you think I'm making it up?"

Her eyes flashed. "If it's so special, then what is it?"

"That's none of your damn business." She had riled him, but the hastily spoken words made T'Beth sit up and take notice. McCoy had never been short with her before.

"You're mad at me," she said as if it truly mattered to her.

With a sigh McCoy stood and came around the desk so there was nothing standing between them. "T'Beth, you've got to start believing the people who care about you. You've got to start _trusting."_

"You really mean my father, don't you?" Her voice choked up. "How can I trust someone who's never around when you need him? What good is someone like that?"

This wasn't going well. Sitting on the desktop, McCoy tried again. "Something upset you enough to make you beam down. What was it? I feel responsible, I sent you in there."

"No," she said, "he's responsible, not you. You weren't even there when he ran out on me."

"You mean when you were a baby? For your information, young lady, I treated your mother when she was very pregnant and very ill and driving your father half crazy with worry. As a matter of fact, I diagnosed the case."

Her eyes widened. "Really?"

"Yes, really. Did Spock tell you anything about _her?_

"He didn't have to. I found her diary a long time ago, and he knows that. I showed it to him."

 _Adrianna's diary!_ McCoy drew a deep breath, determined to find out how much the child really knew. "In this diary of hers, have you ever come across the word…'Sy-jeera'?"

T'Beth shook her head. "Is that in the Sy language? Father said she was half Sydok."

"That's right," McCoy said. "But she was something more, too. She was also a _Sy-jeera_."

T'Beth gazed at him expectantly. It was too late to back down now—she would only look up the word on her own and find a whole pile of unsavory legends. With his heart hammering away, McCoy plunged ahead. "Okay. Listen carefully now, because this is an adult matter, but you really need to understand it. And because if I screw this up, your father will throw me to the snarths."

T'Beth almost smiled.

McCoy tried smiling, too, but it ended up more like a nervous twitch, and he felt his face start to redden. "Alright, so there's this natural attraction between men and women. You know about that. Of _course_ you do. Well, a Sy-jeera has this ability, you see, to make herself irresistible to any man who catches her eye."

T'Beth just stared at him.

"That's why your father forgot all about Vulcan discipline when Adrianna came along. He…caught your mother's eye, and…well…love bloomed." He was having plenty of second thoughts, but it was too late to stop. "Okay, so far so good. The only trouble with all this was that Spock didn't understand what was happening. Maybe Adrianna didn't understand, either. I don't know, but after she died her mother went a little crazy. And now we come down to the reason Spock left you." McCoy drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Justrelle blamed him for your mother's death. She wanted to hurt him so badly that he'd leave you with her and never come around again. So she threw this Sy-jeera business in his face. She tried to shame him, to make it sound like Adrianna had only been out to use him, that she never really cared about him at all. And your grandmother also said something else…"

Leaning forward in her chair, T'Beth asked, "What? What did she say?"

"To make doubly sure that Spock stayed away from you, she told him you'd grow up to be a Sy-jeera, too. That you'd grow up to deliberately hurt and manipulate people just like she claimed your mother did."

T'Beth went pale. In a shaken voice, she said, "Is it true? Am I going to be that way?"

McCoy held out an arm to her. "Sweetheart, come sit here beside me." He could feel her trembling when she joined him on the desk. "Don't worry, you're not going to be that way, and your mother wasn't that way, either. Remember, I met Adrianna. I saw how much she loved Spock. It was a good honest love, not something ugly like your grandmother made it out to be. Lord," he sighed, this is hard. I know Justrelle raised you. I don't want to anything bad about her, but the fact is, she was a bitter, unreasonable woman when it came to Spock. Her lies kept you two apart for eleven years."

After a moment T'Beth said, "Mother talked a lot about Father in her diary. She _did_ love him. And I could never understand how the man she described could just up and leave me after she died."

"Yeah, well, it's not the kind of thing you'd expect Spock to do. But as you've noticed, Vulcans take a lot of pride in their emotional restraint. That's why Justrelle could hurt Spock so deeply. She made him feel weak, uncontrolled, foolish. And all of his feelings for you became mixed up in that. It's taken him a long time to sort things out."

The child made no sound beside him.

"I know, it's a lot to absorb all at once," McCoy said. "I want you to take your time and think about everything I've told you, okay? And get some rest."

He could only hope that he had done the right thing.

ooooo

"Think", McCoy had told her. As if she could do anything else, even after Uhura came off duty and tried hard to cheer her up. Dark, tangled thoughts followed T'Beth through dinner, into the somber hours of the night, and finally into her dreams.

Late next morning she awoke to find Uhura gone. Light shone from the open bathroom door. The cabin was very still. For a while T'Beth lay alone, feeling forgotten and discouraged. _Oh, why did everyone she cared about have to get sick and_ _die?_ First her mother. Then Mama Justrelle. And now Spock was sick again, and this time it was all her fault. She had even wished him dead. But she didn't want him to die, not anymore. She wasn't sure if she had ever really meant it. She only knew that her need for his love was an ache inside her.

Closing her eyes, she tried to remember the calming Vulcan mind rules she was learning on Vulcan, but her restless thoughts drew her into an impossible daydream. _The doorchime sounds. The door slides open and there he is, tall and strong and healthy, promising to take care of her, promising that he'd never, ever leave her again, no matter what she did…or became. Saying the words she needed to hear, the words he had never spoken. "T'Beth, I love you."_

The fantasy was shattered by a real doorchime. Startled, T'Beth sat up in bed and said, "Come in."

A man strode into the dimly lit cabin. Admiral Kirk glanced about and quickly found what he was after. T'Beth went sick with dread as he came to her cot and glared down at her. His eyes no longer held that _later for you_ look that she'd seen yesterday in sickbay. Now they were telling her _this is it, kid._

"What the _hell_ were you thinking?" he said. "Or do you even bother to think?"

T'Beth tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. "My father…" she asked in a shaky voice, "is he…alright?"

"As well as can be expected," Kirk snapped.

"I…I didn't know he would follow me," she stammered. "I didn't know he would get so sick."

"So that gave you the right to pull a dumb stunt like this? And for what? What did you accomplish?"

It seemed a little unfair, coming from Jim Kirk. T'Beth had heard a story or two about _his_ youthful escapades, but she knew better than to mention that. She stared silently down at the bedcovers.

Kirk let out a sigh of exasperation. "One of these days you're going to start thinking about someone besides yourself. I only hope we all survive until then."

He loomed over her a moment longer, then walked toward the door. Just before leaving he turned to her and said, "Your father's asking for you. If you think you can mind your manner, get some clothes on and the guard will take you over to sickbay."

A faint smell of men's cologne lingered after the door slid shut.

ooooo

At sickbay, Doctor McCoy drew T'Beth aside before she could enter her father's room. He looked tired, as if he hadn't slept well, either.

"I probably said told you too much," he confided in a low voice. "Believe it or not, I like to think that your father is my friend. He trusted me to keep my mouth shut on certain subjects."

"Don't worry," T'Beth said, "I won't tell on you."

McCoy smiled wearily and shook his head. "I'm not asking you to do that. There've been way too many secrets around here—that's the whole trouble. If Spock comes after me, so be it. I just want to know that you're okay, that what I said didn't mess things up worse than they were before."

Slipping her arms around the doctor, T'Beth hugged him hard and said, "You're never afraid to tell anyone the truth, are you?"

He grimaced. "I do shoot off my mouth quite a bit."

T'Beth smiled and passed through the door quickly, before she lost her nerve. The air inside the treatment room was as hot and dry as Vulcan. Her attention went to the bed monitor with its dancing readouts, before turning to the blanket-covered patient resting between the bed rails. Father seemed to be asleep. Tiptoeing closer, she stared in disbelief. Sprawled belly-down on the mattress, he lay like a human, hugging his pillow with one arm. She had never seen him sleep before and wondered if he always lay this way, not stiff and composed as she had imagined. Or was this only because he was sick…

Gathering her courage, she gave his arm a timid shake where it clutched the pillow. "Father," she said. "Father…"

He opened his eyes and looked at her before rolling onto back. He cleared his throat. "T'Beth."

"Are you feeling better?" she managed to ask.

"Yes," he answered, but he did not sound like he felt very good at all.

For a moment they just stared at each other. Father's brown eyes seemed to penetrate inside her and see everything, but maybe that was just her guilty conscience. Finally she said, "You got pretty sick down there without your medicine. It…it was all my fault. I didn't mean for anything like this to happen."

Father drew in a slow, shuddering breath and began to cough. It was a while before he could talk again. "You cannot be blamed it I showed faulty judgment in beaming down."

" _Faulty judgment?"_ T'Beth barely got the words out. Here she was trying to apologize, and this is what she gets? A sick feeling of disappointment came over her, and a return of the old recklessness. "So then you shouldn't have gone after me, right? That's what you're saying. It was all just a mistake, your beaming down. A stupid, idiotic

mis—"

"Cristabeth!" Spock's tone stopped her cold. "However I may have wronged you in the past, for now I am still your father and such demand your respect."

T'Beth felt herself withering under the reprimand. Vulcans were funny about names. There were clan names and pledge names and gift names and names too personal even to be spoken aloud. Now Father had used her before name instead of the new Vulcan name he had given her. Trying hard not to cry, she stared down at the floor. _Would things ever be good between them?_

His fingers touched her wrist, lightly tracing the chafe marks left by Mister Scott's rope. It didn't hurt, but tears spilled out and ran down her cheeks.

In a sad, tired voice he said, "You misunderstand." His hand left her and settled back limply on the bed. "But I am afraid that our difficulties have grown far beyond any mere problem of communication. This kind of turmoil does neither of us any good, and is seriously impeding your development." He paused. "There is not need to review all the unpleasant facts. Let us just say that I am not a suitable parent for you."

T'Beth tried to speak, but her throat was too tight.

"In view of this I see no reason to perpetuate such a damaging relationship, when there is an alternative." He looked away. "I am considering…shul var. Divorce."

Confused, T'Beth wiped her eyes and faced him. "But…but you aren't married. Are you?"

His mouth stiffened and he continued gazing at the wall. "Shul var is the severing of bloodline—the divorce of offspring." He did not wait for her reaction. "If you are content living with Sarek and Amanda on Vulcan, we could conceivably carrying the arrangement one stop further. For the sake of harmony you could end life as my daughter…and live on as my sister, instead." Almost in a whisper he added, "Perhaps then you would find some peace."

Deep in shock, T'Beth heard an inner voice crowing jubilantly. _There he goes again, trying to get rid of me! McCoy was wrong! Father doesn't care about anyone but Kirk! He's so mean and selfish, no wonder Mama hated him!_

Then he turned his head and looked at her.

As their eyes met, a father's bitter pain washed over T'Beth, silencing the voice. And in that moment she saw the truth. He was not seeking his own welfare, but hers. What had he said? _I am not a suitable parent for you._ He thought he was a failure. _She_ had thought so, too. But now…

Numbly, she shook her head. "No. I don't want to be your sister." He went stony. He thought she was rejecting him even as a brother. But she refused to accept yet another misunderstanding and said, "I'm your _daughter,_ don't you see? You're my _father_. We can't _be_ anything else. We can't just give up on each other."

Taking down the bedrail, she put her arms around him and laid her head on his chest. The steady rhythm of his breathing reassured her, and before long she felt a warm, comforting hand settle on her back. Thickly she said, "I want to trust you, I really do."

He started coughing again and the door opened. Doctor Chapel came in and activated a bluish field over the bed. Pulling the bedrail back in place, she gave T'Beth a fond, sympathetic look. "I'm afraid visiting hours are over now. Your father needs to rest."

T'Beth wanted to ask if he was going to be alright, but she was too afraid of what Christine might tell her. Mama had coughed a lot before she died. Now Father had stopped coughing, but he was shivering hard. Looking deep into his eyes, she said, "Promise me you'll get well."

With the tiniest hint of a smile, he said, "I am better already."

ooooo

The air movement chilled Spock's scalp as he strode through the ship's corridors to the briefing room. He had been swimming when the summons came, taking time between trainee classes to exercise and build strength. There had been only a moment to don his uniform and give his hair a quick, damp combing before appearing for medical review.

Of course, this was only a formality. The last review had found him unfit for command and there was no reason to believe that the conclusion of this review would be any different. He was well acquainted with his own weaknesses: the continued loss of some Vulcan functions, the general lack of stamina, the insidious hunger for strardus that occasionally stirred in him before he turned his mind elsewhere. All through yesterday's physical and mental examinations he had prepared himself for a negative outcome. Still, he felt nervous when he entered the room and so many eyes settled on him. He had expected Admiral Kirk and the doctors: McCoy, Chapel, and Fielding; but First Officer Sulu was there, as well. They were all seated around the table, waiting for him.

He, too, sat down.

Kirk gave his wet hair an amused look, and began. "We all have things to do, so let's make this as brief as possible." He nodded to McCoy. "Doctor?"

McCoy shifted in his chair and looked down at a printout sheet in front of him. His face underwent several curious changes of expression. "Well," he drawled at last, "after reviewing the latest test results, the board has no choice but to declare Captain Spock…" he paused to offer the Vulcan a lopsided smile "…fully able-bodied and fit for command!"

Spock stared at him, certain there had been an error.

"Let the log so read," Kirk concluded. "At this stardate, 1310 hours, command of the U.S.S. Enterprise returned in full to Captain Spock."

After a short burst of applause, people started to leave their seats. Still not quite believing, Spock rose to accept their congratulations. It wasn't until Sulu shook his hand said "Welcome back, sir," that the sense of unreality finally gave way.

"Thank you, Hikaru," Spock managed to say. Then, in a voice loud enough to be heard by everyone, "I would like to thank all of you for your patience, loyalty, and continuing friendship during these difficult months."

Kirk came up, smiling, and touched his arm on the way by. "Nice," he said in a low voice. "Very nice, Spock. I only hope you're as appreciative when you see all the paperwork I saved for you."

McCoy and Chapel were next. The Chief Surgeon handed him the test results and grumbled, "I thought I'd never get you out of my sickbay." Chapel smiled at Spock without saying anything, without really needing to, then started after McCoy. At the doorway she paused to look at the only person who had hung back. "Doctor Fielding," she said in a cool voice, "are you coming?"

Lauren Fielding remained standing by her chair. "Go ahead, Doctor. There's something I need to discuss with the captain."

Spock took note of Chapel's displeasure before the door closed. Then he was alone with Doctor Fielding and the tension he had experienced earlier suddenly returned in force. Since his initial illness, their lives had been closely linked in one way or another. He would never forget the harm he had done her, not long ago, while in the grip of a symbiotic alien. But looking at her now, he found himself moving beyond that incident and wondering what sort of thoughts lay beneath those startling blue eyes. A hint of memory stirred, then drifted beyond reach. And he told himself, _she is just one of many women aboard ship. There are others here with intelligence and physical beauty, others who are graceful and unassuming in their ways. All those others I can deal with quite calmly and objectively, but never this one. From the very beginning_ _she has aroused my interest..._

"Doctor?" he prompted, hoping to hurry along the encounter and be done with it.

Her complexion grew pink as she moved nearer and faced him more or less at attention. Plainly embarrassed, she said, "I realize, sir, that your words to the group were not intended for me. There's always been a certain…strain…evident between us. That's why I tried to stay in the background after we left Gamma Vertas IV. You didn't need the aggravation of having me around."

 _An aggravation? Was that how he saw her?_ Stumbling over his own thoughts, Spock kept silent.

She continued, "I've given the matter a lot of consideration. It's not in my nature to run out on my responsibilities, but now that you're back in command…I think we should talk about a transfer."

Spock felt an unpleasant tightening in his stomach. "You wish to transfer off the Enterprise?" He cast about for some basis to deny her, and found it. A perfectly _logical_ reason, for he had been donating regular samples of his blood for the doctor's research. His blood alone had the necessary qualities. "What of your plakir-fee study?"

The blush deepened over her cheeks, making her hair seem lighter. Her gaze fell. "It might be the best thing…for everyone concerned. I know I make you uncomfortable. Things have been said…things have happened."

Spock chose his words carefully. "My comfort is not at issue here. You have repeatedly proven yourself to be a valuable member of the medical department. If you can overcome any ill-feelings toward _me_ , I would prefer that you remain aboard." Her eyes rose, full of deeply personal questions, but he gave her no chance to speak. "Doctor, my thanks were intended for everyone, without exception. You may as well know that I am recommending you for a citation, along with Commander Scott, for your part in the Beta 10 incident."

A crooked, rewarding smile came over her face. "Thank you, Captain," she said. "I really appreciate that."

The image of her smile followed Spock into the corridor where he collided with Admiral Kirk. Backing a step, Kirk looked narrowed at the Vulcan, then at Doctor Fielding as she emerged from the conference room. His eyes tracked the woman until she went out of sight.

"Spock," he said, nibbling his lower lip, "it's not like you to be clumsy."

"My apologies," Spock said. "I was distracted."

Kirk gave him an " _I bet you were"_ look. The trouble between Spock and Fielding were no secret.

Ignoring the comment, Spock scanned the printout McCoy had given him. "Jim," he said, frowning, "my test scores are not impressive. I do not understand the board's decision."

Kirk grinned. "Trying to worm your way out of command?" He continued in a more serious tone, "It's no mistake, Spock. Starfleet doesn't measure its officers by Vulcan standards. The tests say you're as fit as any human, and that's no insult."

Spock tried not to take insult, but to be called "fit as a human"…

"Oh, by the way…" Kirk reached into a pocket. "This came in just as I was leaving the bridge. A message for you from ShiKahr."

Spock accepted the com disk with thanks, but it was evening before he could return to his quarters and insert the disk into his desktop terminal. He hesitated before opening the mail. Most likely the message was from T'Beth, or from her grandmother with news about her. Would it bring more disappointment? Memories washed over him—some dimmed by sickness and drugs, others sharp and painful. So much had happened since the first difficult meeting with his daughter. He did not trust the latest improvement in T'Beth's behavior, yet their parting had held some promise for better days ahead.

He held back, reluctant to upset the delicate balance returning to his life. But the message must be viewed, so Spock ordered it onscreen. T'Beth's face appeared.

 _"Hello Father," she said. "I hope you're all_ _better now. I can imagine you watching this, wondering_ _what I'm going to say. I'm still trying to trust you, and_ _I want to earn your trust, too._ _It shouldn't make any difference even if we're_ _separated by a galaxy, but it still does._

 _"I want to read_ _something to you that I wrote."_ _Her eyes dropped to a paper offscreen. "Not a_ _dawn will come without my thinking of you. When the_ _hot noon wind blows sand into my eyes and takes away_ _my breath, I'll remember you standing beside me in my_ _first moments on Vulcan. I'll remember the feel of your_ _arms as you carried me through the sandstorm to the_ _encampment home. And how later that same night, when_ _I got homesick and frightened, you held me and spoke to_ _me so softly and sensibly that I relaxed and fell asleep._ _I'll remember all those things. And whenever I think of_ _those moments, I'll know that in your heart, for those_ _eleven long years, you never forgot me, either. Never,_ _no matter how much the remembering hurt."_

 _She looked up again, teary-eyed. "Sarek says_ _that someday starships will be big enough to include_ _the families of the crew. Wouldn't that be something?_ _Gram says she's going to talk to you about taking a_ _ground assignment until I'm grown, but not to 'hold_ _my breath' because 'Space is in your blood'._

 _"She's right, isn't she? Journey safe. I miss_ _you."_


End file.
